As a young man, McBride hauled his double bass up to New York City.

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Chikako Matsumoto, who is originally from Japan, plays flute and double bass.

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The double bass is an unwieldy string instrument that stands more than six feet tall, and it can be physically demanding to play.

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The banjos on the veranda are joined by the low boom of a double bass and jaunty pitch of a fiddle and guitar, the audience nodding along to the beat.

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"When he is conducting, there is this animal instinct which comes out of him and you don't see it in rehearsal, you see it when he is performing and the look on his face, " says Matt Gibson who plays the double bass for the LSO.

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The size most commonly used in the orchestra is called the contrabass-tuba, or double-bass tuba.

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In their rumbas Congolese musicians slowed the Cuban tempo and added African instruments, drums and the thumb-piano, to the guitar and double-bass.

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Patricia da Silva, a Brazilian double-bass player who is no more than five feet tall, stood out for her steady hand and warm personality.

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They gave us an insight to the heavier side of the Bury music scene, with two guitarists and a drummer addicted to his double-bass drum pedals.

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Composers wrote complex pieces meant for instruments of varying sizes and levels of delicacy, and as history hummed its way from Monteverdi to Mahler, orchestras grew larger and less mobile (just ask any double-bass player).

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